Updated Opera browsers to show off mobile payments and social networks at Barcelona

It was MWC 2010 when Opera first revealed its Mobile browser for Android smartphones. Opera Mobile and Opera Mini have since become one of the most popular third party browsers in the Android Market. Both will be the recipient of a major update to be announced in Barcelona for MWC 2012. In a statement, Opera notes that it has the highest market share among mobile browsers with more than 160 million active users per month and says that both Opera Mobile and Opera Mini will have new features that focus on the "social aspect of browsing". Opera says it also will be making an announcement about mobile payments which will "democratize the area by bringing it to not just smartphone users."

Opera Mobile is getting an update at MWC

For those who are not familiar with the difference between the Opera Mobile and Opera Mini browser, the latter calls up the site you requested on one of Opera's servers first, which compresses it before sending it to your phone. This speeds up the time required to render a page by 2 to 3 times. As a result, users will consume less data than with the stock browser, and thus might save some money on data charges. Opera Mobile uses the phone's own software and hardware to render pages. Sites as still compressed to improve loading times and cut bandwidth use by as much as 80%.

Speaking of MWC 2012, we will be in Barcelona to bring you the most complete and up-to-date coverage. This year's expo begins on February 27th, so set your calendar accordingly.

13 Comments

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It's hard to beat Opera's quick loading times and amazing tabs system. I haven't played with Chrome for Mobile or ICS stock browser, but as a long-time Opera Mini user it'd be hard to ever let go of some of its features.

well, i use it because Opera mobile takes ages to shut down/open up, and also crashes sometimes on my phone.
Opera mini otoh, is a fast, reliable little thingie. It does the trick when simple browsing is all you need.

I also tried them all, but keep coming back to Opera mobile.. by far the best UI, simple, efficient, beautiful and intuitive, with perfect tab system.
Once the sites are loaded, it also offers the smoothest and most responsive feedback..and the one awesome feature other browsers are still lacking - the automatic zoom in area of border presses.
However it has a major flaw of being too big and loading/shutting off very slowly(at least on mine phone).
So i still use Opera mini the most.

In the next release i'd like that to be fixed, plus a bit more add on's, theme support, and a side tray for scrolling.
Then i'll have my ideal browser.

I am using opera mini and it's the best browser I've ever used it has the simplest ui (user interface) and loads every thing faster than the stock browser on my phone
the only browser which can beat opera is chrome for android 4.0 though I've never used it but the benchmarks are pretty amazing

The real reason why Opera is tops ONLY ON android.. is all the rest are pants!!! :) (Only stoopid thing is it goes to the mobile site for yoottoob?? )
- another big plus is 'desktop' mode, so net pages look the same as your PC..

If you don't think that, you are not using mobile Internet enough, a flash hater, or simply paranoid / unadventurous... :/

Until FF pulls it finger out and gets flash working like *every* other android browser, we are stuck..

when ICS comes out (**officially** not 'custom ROM' !!) it looks like android's new browser will knock out the competition... :) :)

I have used Opera mini way back when I owned Sony Ericsson K750, and i still use it today on my Optimus 3D. As far as Opera Mobile is concerened it's my NO1 browser on android. Tried a lot of browser but none of them are as fast or have a intuitive UI like Opera.

Have been using opera mobile since the days of ts N96. Now am using opera mobile on my galaxy and it is the best browser available for Android. I tried dolphin HD and it's tab management system sucks if you have a device with a small screen. Opera on the other hand, it's perfect for any device.

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